Passion & Poetry: Peckinpah's Last Western

On her sixteenth birthday, Sabrina Spellman discovers she has magical powers. She lives with her 600-year-old aunts Hilda and Zelda as well as talking cat Salem in the fictional town of Westbridge, Massachusetts.

Portrayal of a talented, influencial and troubled artist: a filmmaker who fought his own demons and seemed to live his own legend like no other director. Against all odds Sam Peckinpah was able to create a very personal body of work in the studio system of Hollywood and with his powerful directing and editing style changed the way of filmmaking forever. Legendary for his use of slow-motion violence, various scandals and his ongoing problems with sudios and producers, the story of Peckinpah is filled with tragedy, humor, success and defeat.

Joe Keegan is the 'Rocky' of stand-up comedy. A fifteen-year comedy veteran who was pegged for stardom early on in his career but has blown every major audition he has ever had in legendary fashion. Fresh off a recent fiasco with a heckler that included a broken nose, Joe's friend Kenny tells him he can get them an audition for 'The Tonight Show' and that it's 'a can't miss.' The one catch is that it's at a roadside bar in tiny Pine Lake, Wisconsin, hometown of Tonight Show Talent scout, Harvey Skorik who never misses 'Rocktoberfest.' Having doubts but needing a break from L.A., Joe reluctantly agrees to go. Arriving in Wisconsin, Joe bombs his first night on stage when local emcee Dug sabotages him. Joe cannot get a break until he encounters his former high school English teacher, the beautiful Molly Mahoney who is also at a crossroads in her life.

For cineasts worldwide Sam Peckinpah is best known for his 1969 masterpiece The Wild Bunch. Yet for the general 'mainstream' audience, the film everybody seems to know when the name Peckinpah is mentioned, is Convoy, Peckinpah's biggest success at the box office. But the entertaining actioner that had turned out to be a commercial winner and a public favorite in fact had a very troubled production history.

A documentary about the making of Sam Peckinpah's 1972 classic film The Getaway.

A documentary about Sam Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron," shot in Yugoslavia in 1976.

A documentary about Sam Peckinpah's personal director's cut of his last film The Osterman Weekend (1983); recently restored by film historian Mike Siegel. Siegel documents the discovery and acquisition of the 35mm print after 24 years of unprotected storage; outlining the process of cleaning and scanning the film as well as some assets now lost to time.

An afternoon with Marianne Koch, who remembers the making of Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, starring Clint Eastwood.